


Fire and Ice

by Atalan



Category: Transformers
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-03-27
Updated: 2010-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-08 09:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atalan/pseuds/Atalan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Ten million years ago, with Cybertron drifting inexorably towards war, Skyfire lost his partner on a distant world. A lot can change in ten million years - but Starscream's not about to sit back and take it without a fight. And who the frag is this Megatron, anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire and Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starscream wakes up cold, furious, and confused. Look out world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of eight 'episodes' that will form a series arc. I will also say now that Skyfire/Starscream is not the primary pairing here... and that this is not a Starscream Joins The Autobots fic. :)

Getting half a million volts through his core processor wasn't Starscream's favourite way to wake up.

He flailed blindly as soon as his servos came online. His fist - still lacking in all but the most basic sensations, but at least mobile - collided with someone's helm, and his crackling audio receptors picked up an outraged yelp. Hands pinned his arms to the berth, or whatever it was he was lying on. Starscream responded by kicking viciously into space. He felt the impact of metal on metal reverberate up his leg, but he didn't have the strength to put any real damage behind it.

"Get _off_ me, you incompetent _imbeciles_," he snarled, or tried to. He couldn't hear his own voice, but by the feel of it, his vocaliser was just spitting out static. He switched to comms instead, broadcasting on an open channel. _:Get your hands off--:_

The signal looped back, filling his head with the squeal of feedback. His radio was shorting out, overloading peripheral systems as it did so. Starscream shrieked and tried to shut down the transmitter, but it had fused itself and oh Primus unconsciousness would be good about now--

The hands holding him down abruptly vanished, replaced by a pair that would have been indistinguishable if he hadn't immediately recognised the field brushing his.

"Skyfire!" he tried to wail, and he thought at least some of the syllables came out clear. "Comms, shut the fragging comms down!"

He didn't know if he'd made himself understood or if Skyfire had figured it out for himself, but fingers dug into his circuitry and his entire communications array went thankfully dead. Skyfire was speaking, but he couldn't make out the words. Skyfire's field was vast and opaque in a way Starscream had never felt from him, but beneath the glassy surface he caught hints of turbulence: relief, guilt, banked anger, and the bright flecks of a joy that was as bitter as it was brittle.

His audios cleared for just a second.

"... shut down until I can..."

"Don't you dare! I just came back on--"

The world slipped away.

* * *

The second time Starscream came online, he had just enough recollection of being held down the first time that before even activating his optics he threw himself sideways and attempted to land on his feet.

It didn't work out exactly the way he'd hoped. He was hooked up to a dozen or so cables, everything from data feeds to power lines, with the result that he rolled halfway off the berth before he was brought up short. He hung for a painful moment like a nanobug caught in a microfiber web before he slumped back to his start position with a groan.

"Starscream?" Footsteps accompanied Skyfire's voice, now mercifully clear; his audio receptors seemed to be back online. "Can you hear me? Don't move, you're in bad shape--"

"I can hear you," Starscream snapped back. His vocaliser was fixed as well. At least Skyfire had his priorities straight. Experimentally, he powered up his optics. They were slow to respond, but the world began to come slowly into focus. "What the frag happened?"

There was a pause.

"You crashed," Skyfire said. Starscream could make him out now as a blurry figure bent over the berth. "While you were running recon on Earth-- on Sol-3, that is. Remember?"

"Of course I remember," replied Starscream waspishly, though it wasn't true. He remembered arriving at the target planet and running their preliminary scans, and he remembered Skyfire annoying the absolute _slag_ out of him by working his way through the pre-entry check list in minute detail, and he remembered the fierce pleasure of finally getting his wings into a new atmosphere... but nothing about a crash. Only a sensation of lost time and biting cold. "How did we get back to Cybertron?"

Another pause.

"We're not on Cybertron."

Starscream was seeing clearly enough now to make out Skyfire's expression - much more guarded than Starscream had expected, no sign of the relief he had sensed before - and a glimpse of their surroundings. As he'd guessed from his other readings, they were in a Cybertronian structure of some kind. Probably a medical facility. He'd assumed that meant they were back home, but if they weren't...

Starscream swore creatively.

"You mean there was a base here all along? We aren't first? _Slag_ it, Skyfire, you said this place was untouched! What the frag was the point of coming out here if it's already documented--"

"Starscream," said Skyfire very quietly, "shut up."

It was hardly the first time in their partnership that Skyfire had used that command, but _this_ time it was said so flatly, and his optics had gone so ice-bright and cold, that Starscream actually obeyed, more startled than he cared to admit.

"You have been in stasis for a very long time," Skyfire went on, each word precise. He turned away momentarily to pick up some sort of tool, with which he began to work on the circuitry in Starscream's left arm. "A _very_ long time. After you crashed, you were buried in the ice at the southern pole. I could tell you weren't dead, but I couldn't find you. I had to go back to Cybertron for help."

The trip from Cybertron had taken them almost half a vorn. Even if Skyfire had retraced their flight path at his top speed, Starscream had likely been out for three times that long. A whole vorn lost! What Pit-spawned luck - and all for nothing, if the planet they'd hoped to make their breakthrough was already the site of some mining expedition or outpost that they'd missed in the records.

Starscream tried to query his chronometer, but it was obviously as damaged as his comms, giving him nonsense readings in the thousands.

"Wonderful."

He kept his tone relatively moderate; much as he wanted to rage and snarl, Skyfire had his hands in Starscream's circuits and Starscream didn't want him distracted - or irritated enough to stop working altogether. Not to mention that the lay of the land seemed to have changed unpredictably in the time Starscream had been offline - and not in a way he appreciated. He had been able to read Skyfire like a datapad for so long that it was disconcerting to find himself unable to guess exactly what was going on in his partner's processor.

"So whose medbay is this?" Starscream asked after a moment. "Your 'help' from Cybertron?"

"In a fashion." Skyfire made a connection in Starscream's wiring that brought up a string of warning messages at the side of Starscream's vision. Starscream ignored them; Skyfire knew his systems well enough to know what he was doing. "We're in my quarters. I don't trust anyone else here to work on you, and this way we get a small respite, at least."

"Respite? Quarters? What the frag are you talking about?"

Skyfire flipped closed the casing and unplugged several of the cables on Starscream's left side. Starscream seized the opportunity to sit up carefully and take a good look around him. It certainly looked like nothing so much as a standard cabin on a Cybertronian deep space cruiser - but Skyfire had always preferred to fly himself places rather than signing on as crew to someone else. The room was crammed with bits of tech that Starscream couldn't immediately recognise, and the whole design of the cabin, while broadly familiar, was subtly different from what he was used to.

And Skyfire himself, now that Starscream took the time to really look at him, had changed more than his behaviour. He looked like he'd significantly upgraded himself since they'd set out for this planet, and for some reason he'd changed his optics. Starscream even thought his alt-mode might be different, though it was hard to tell - just the impression he had from Skyfire's wings and the shape of his cockpit. A sense of indignant wrath rose up in Starscream's spark. Had Skyfire not come straight back for him, after all? And where the frag had he found the credits for that sort of tech? Exactly how long had he allowed Starscream to rust in stasis before he bothered to return? Starscream tried to bully his chronometer into working, but it just spat out the same improbable reading as it had the first time.

"Tell me what has _happened,_" he demanded.

Skyfire looked at him - looked him straight in the optics, something he hadn't done for a long time now - and Starscream felt again the inexplicable gulf between them, the awareness that the rules of this game had somehow changed without Starscream's consent. Then Skyfire sighed, pushed Starscream's legs over on the berth so he could sit down in the space, and selected another tool.

"By the time I got back, the energy crisis had worsened." Starscream twitched as Skyfire picked up one foot and explored the inside of a non-functional turbine with precise fingertips. "There was no way I could get enough fuel to make another trip, and no-one who would help. The Academy had been closed down."

"Well, we knew that was coming," Starscream muttered. He felt a sting of fury nonetheless; those imbeciles in government were blind to the fact that the only sure solution to the crisis was to find more efficient methods of energy conversion - unless they were willing to go out and _take_ resources from other planets, which they also refused to do. "Not that any of them would've been much good to you anyhow."

"No," Skyfire agreed, to Starscream's surprise, "they weren't. They even told me I should count myself lucky to be rid of you, can you imagine that?"

Starscream could, easily - the rest of the Academy had held little love for him by the time he'd bullied and manipulated his way to the energy grant that had allowed them to leave Cybertron for Sol-3 - but then, he'd loathed them all in return. He was less interested in that revelation than in the sarcasm in Skyfire's voice. So, this accident of Starscream's had finally tuned Skyfire's optics to how passive and complacent their fellow scientists had become, had it? Maybe when they got back to Cybertron they would finally _get_ somewhere, if Skyfire had reached a point where he'd stop dragging his feet...

Skyfire was still holding Starscream's foot in his lap, but his hands had stilled and his optics were on something distant.

"It wasn't just the Academy," he said at length. "Everything was falling apart. You have to understand, Starscream--" Skyfire glanced sideways, and for a moment the glassy wall that screened his emotions cleared, and Starscream could feel his tearing, aching need to be forgiven. Forgiven for what? "-- it was chaos. I had to barter, beg or steal just to get the fuel to stay functioning - let alone stockpile enough to come and find you."

"You seem to have found enough to upgrade yourself," Starscream put in acidly. "Nice wings, by the way. What did you barter, beg or steal for those?"

Skyfire didn't rise to it. He just shrugged, and although Starscream caught another bitter pang of guilt, for the most part his field settled back into that unreadable opacity that Starscream was beginning to loathe.

"That came later," Skyfire said. "Much later. For a while we were winning the war, you see, and I hoped with the upgrades I might be able to come out here..."

"War? What war?" Starscream pulled his foot out of Skyfire's grasp and began to disconnect the various cables attached to his ports. Most of his basic systems seemed to be functioning acceptably, though he wouldn't want to try transforming. "Who would dare attack Cybertron?"

"No-one attacked. You remember the Decepticons?"

"That gang of thugs from Kaon?"

"They found a new leader. One who openly opposed the government."

"About time someone did," Starscream muttered, processor racing. The Decepticons had been just troublemakers when he'd left Cybertron with Skyfire - a gang of military models and malcontents who'd turned the lower levels of Kaon into their own lawless domain. "But... _war_? They didn't have the resources..."

"They found them. Or _took_ them, rather. It was vorns before the government would admit they were a threat, and by then they were too powerful to be put down without open aggression. That was when the Autobots established themselves as defenders of the established order – and that was when it became a war rather than a rebellion..."

"How _many_ vorns, Skyfire?" Starscream pulled his legs under him and leaned forward, taking hold of Skyfire's arm to get his attention. "How long have I been in stasis?"

Skyfire wouldn't look at him. "If I could have come back sooner, I swear I--"

"Stop prevaricating! Either spit it out or get on with fixing my chronometer."

"There's nothing wrong with your chronometer."

"Don't be ridiculous, it's out by over a hundred thousand vorns!"

"There is nothing wrong with your chronometer," Skyfire repeated, with quiet finality.

"I'm telling you it's--"

Starscream trailed off as the words registered. The shock hit a nanoklik later when he finally ran a diagnostic check; it came up clean. And the reading was the same as it had been all along: that impossible number hanging silent and incomprehensible in his processor. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"... a _hundred thousand_ vorns?"

"Or approximately ten million of this planet's years. Yes."

Even to a Cybertronian, it was a long, long time - too long to easily comprehend. Starscream tried to wrap his processor around the concept, but it simply wouldn't compute. Instead, he grasped at details, in the hope that they would help him to understand the whole. His optics focused on the bright blazons on Skyfire's wings and chest. The sigil was unfamiliar to him, but its implication was obvious.

"So you joined up to fight, did you? I didn't think you had it in you."

"It was the only chance I had of getting back here," Skyfire replied. There was something in his tone that Starscream had never heard before; something black and bitter like the darkness that he had sensed lurking behind the glass walls of Skyfire's emotional shields. "I had no choice."

"And what will I be to these Autobots?" Starscream asked. "A prisoner? A curiosity? Am I expected to _join_ them?"

Skyfire had turned his head sharply after the first question; his expression was a mix of surprise and hollow amusement.

"The Autobots?" he said. "The Autobots couldn't help me, Starscream."

A shrill buzzing cut through his words, and a red light by the door began to flash angrily. The buzzing was repeated, accompanied by the sound of someone hammering on the door.

"Open up! You're wanted _now_ and if you don't come out, I'm warping in to get you."

Skyfire's mouth twisted angrily, but he got to his feet.

"So much for our respite," he said. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Wait just a--"

"And keep _quiet_."

Skyfire hit the door controls; the door slid open and another Seeker - black and purple, and considerably better upgraded than Starscream - fell into the room. He looked almost disappointed that Skyfire had obeyed the injunction to open the door.

"So what've you done now?" he demanded, with an eagerness that seemed equal parts accusatory and honestly curious. "We've got Scrapper raving about his team getting hauled off at gunpoint or something, and Reflector's bleating on about missing stock, and Soundwave's got a bunch of numbers that could mean slagging _anything_ if you ask me, but apparently they've got something to do with you running off for a week without orders--"

"Stop running your vocaliser, Skywarp," Skyfire replied coolly. "I take it you're escorting me to the bridge?"

"Got it in one."

"Then you can escort both of us," snapped Starscream, disconnecting the last of the cables and jumping down from the makeshift worktable. His processor was buzzing with a million questions, and he had a feeling that he might need to throttle Skyfire when he got to the bottom of all this, but for now, he was damned if he was going to be ignored. "That's assuming you have the processing power to find your way back."

"Starscream—" Skyfire began, but Starscream glared him into silence. Maybe he was imagining it, but he thought Skyfire's mouth almost twisted into a smile at that.

This Skywarp, whoever he was, was staring at Starscream with surprise that shaded into frank incredulity.

"Where in the Pit did you come from, a museum? Are those your _original_ wings? Seriously?"

"Better than whatever you last scanned," Starscream retorted. He wasn't quite sure of his balance, but he managed to cross the room without showing it. "Who designed those, a half-blind sanitary drone?"

"Hey, we've gotta blend in, dumb-glitch, 's not my fault we're stuck with whatever a bunch of organics could come up with--"

"_Organics_?" Starscream turned to Skyfire. "I thought there were no sentients on this planet?"

"There weren't when we originally arrived."

"They've evolved _since_ then? And they're tool-using?"

"More than tools - they've got as far as their moon and--"

"Have you got data? How did they overcome the usual limitations on organic cerebral evolution and--"

"Hey!" Skywarp interrupted. "I'm s'posed to be bringing you _right away_. You want me to go tell Megatron you're too busy with geek stuff?"

"Mega-who?"

"I told you the Decepticons had found a new leader," Skyfire said, laying a hand on Starscream's back and propelling him firmly out into the corridor. "For Primus's sake, don't talk back."

* * *

  
The corridors of this ship were walled with the same sleek metal as Skyfire's quarters. Starscream hobbled grimly along beside Skyfire; his body was protesting at every joint and gimbal, but he wasn't about to ask for support. Skyfire glanced at him occasionally, obviously thinking of offering it, but Starsceam glared back until Skyfire looked away.

"So what's your designation, anyway?" Skywarp asked after the second junction. Starscream made a mental note of the numerical code stamped on the walls; he thought he'd be able to retrace his steps if it was all signposted like this. "And how come you've got no brand? I've never seen a Seeker that wasn't a 'con."

"Starscream. And I'm a _scientist_, not some grunt with rust where his processor should be."

"You've got a real mouth on you." Skywarp led them around another corner, and onto an elevator platform that tingled with an antigrav field. "You won't be talking so smart when you've got a fusion cannon in your face."

The elevator took them up to the topmost level of the ship. Starscream assumed they were going to the command centre. There was something subtly wrong with the whole situation, though he couldn't quite figure out what. The best he could come up with was that the ship didn't _feel_ like a ship, though for the moment he couldn't say why. He might have asked Skyfire, if Skywarp hadn't been so vocally present. As it was, he spent most of the trip entertaining himself trading insults with the other Seeker. He couldn't tell if Skyfire was annoyed by that or not - perhaps he simply didn't care. Starscream was more unsettled than he cared to admit by the changes that time had wrought in his partner.

"Here we go." Skywarp stopped in front of big double doors that were, indeed, labelled _Command_. "Better you than me."

He stood aside as doors slid into the surrounding wall. Skyfire took the lead, and Starscream trailed after him into a brightly-lit space full of the sound of systems and low voices speaking in Cybertronian.

The first thing that struck him was the big viewport on the far side of the bridge. It should have been showing a starscape, or perhaps a planet from orbit, but instead it looked out over a vista of ice and snow, lit by an eerie twilight. The sight brought a stab of memory with it: getting caught in the nightmare storm that surrounded the pole, losing his way and then power to his left turbine, and his radio giving him back nothing but static... Starscream shook his head once, sharply, to dispel the feeling of helplessness.

So their ship wasn't exactly a ship any more - they were grounded, and Starscream had never seen a cruiser this big that could reach escape velocity, which meant that it would never fly again. That was what he'd been subconsciously aware of - the difference between artificial gravity and the real thing.

The design of the bridge was much as Starscream had been expecting, with systems stations around the perimeter and a raised platform in the centre where the commander would sit. There were an assortment of mechs at the perimeter stations, including a couple of Seekers of a design Starscream hadn't seen before - their nosecones didn't seem to fold down, instead sitting ridiculously on top of their heads.

But his attention was caught and pinned by the mech on the central dais - who had turned towards the door when it opened, and was now glowering at Skyfire. This, presumably, was Megatron. Starscream had never seen a design like his - cool, smooth silver and gunmetal grey, highlighted with red as deep as the heart of a dying star. He couldn't begin to guess at the alt-mode. Not a flyer though, he thought, with a little curl of disdain. Megatron had the burning scarlet optics of a mech of Kaon build, the same colour as Skyfire's – and those of every other mech on the bridge, Starscream realised. Megatron's were currently fixed on Skyfire with the intensity of a predator. Starscream felt a swift crackle of fury that he apparently didn't merit so much as a glance.

"Skyfire." It wasn't quite a growl, but it was close, and accompanied by a nearly inaudible whining sound that Starscream identified as a weapon charging. "Tell me why I shouldn't shoot out your treacherous spark and give you over to the Constructicons for spare parts."

It was not an idle threat, any fool could see that, but Skyfire seemed entirely unmoved.

"Because I'm still more use to you alive than dead," he replied. "And I've brought you a valuable asset. Starscream was my partner before the war - if anyone can work out what's going wrong with the conversion process, he can."

Megatron's mouth drew back in a snarl. He cast a dismissive glance over Starscream, returning his gaze almost at once to Skyfire's impassive expression.

"Valuable? You've brought me an out of date Seeker who isn't even armed, unearthed using _my_ troops and _my_ resources and in direct contradiction to _my_ orders! And then there's your little trick with the security feeds. How long have you had _that_ bit of sabotage in your subspace?"

"I thought it might provide a useful learning experience for Soundwave," Skyfire replied; his tone was perfectly polite, as calm as if he were standing before the Academy advisory board. He turned his head slightly towards a blue mech with a red visor, standing some paces to Megatron's right. "How long did it take you to find the data splice?"

The blue mech said nothing, but a smaller one at one of the workstations said, "Frag you, that was _me_. I know what spliced cams look like."

"My apologies, Reflector. Did you--"

"Silence!" Megatron raked a disgusted glare over Reflector, who shrank back in his seat and became very busy with his console, then fixed Skyfire with a truly dangerous look. "Don't think I haven't pulled the data files on this partner of yours, Skyfire. He might have been your equal once, but he's as out of date as last vorn's energon and if he's of no use to the Decepticons--"

"Has it occurred to either one of you metalheads," Starscream broke in, slender patience finally exhausted and a tight core of _rage _burning in his spark, "that I've no intention of joining your pathetic little gang, whether I'm _of use_ to you or not?"

"_Starscream_\--" began Skyfire, but Starscream stalked past him, tossing him a withering look before folding his arms over his cockpit and meeting Megatron's optics.

"If I'm out of date, enlighten me! When I left Cybertron the Decepticons were a handful of thugs grubbing around for energon in the ruins. Now apparently there's some sort of war on and I'm suppose to care. What in the Pit do you have to offer me?"

For the first time, Megatron turned his attention entirely on Starscream. It was rather like staring into a fission reaction, but Starscream would have gone back in the ice before he backed down. He glared back, chin up and wings flaring high in challenge. For a second, he thought Megatron actually looked _surprised_, but it wasn't enough to displace the sneer that had settled onto his face.

"To offer _you_? I think you misunderstand your situation, Seeker. There are only two sides in this war. If you are not Decepticon, you will not leave this base alive."

That cannon on his arm was humming with power. Starscream had never had much respect for authority, especially not when it was clearly vastly less intelligent than he was, but it was slowly dawning on him that Megatron really might just shoot him. He was peripherally aware that Skyfire was a step behind him, and that his earlier poise had been replaced by a tension so palpable that Starscream could feel it radiating off him. And Megatron was watching him, the faintest curl of a malevolent smile twisting the corner of his mouth as he recognised the realisation creeping through Starscream's processor.

Fine. Time to switch tactics.

"Is that how you recruit all your troops, mighty Megatron? How comforting to know that you are surrounded by soldiers so dedicated to your cause." He smiled his most ingratiating smile, deliberately easing off his stance so that it was less confrontational. "I can't say I am any different. I would be delighted to, ah... _serve_ under your command."

Maybe Megatron was smarter than he looked; his optics flared and Starscream had a long moment to wonder what exactly that weapon on his shoulder was capable of. Then he smirked, broad and arrogant.

"Your... _dedication_ is touching," he replied, leaving Starscream in no doubt that he'd caught the not-so-veiled sarcasm in his acquiescance. Definitely smarter than he looked, then. Interesting. "Perhaps we can find a use for you. If nothing else, we're always in need of spare Seeker parts."

His gaze snapped back to Skyfire.

"He is your liability and if he displeases me, he will be terminated and you will suffer the consequences. We have no room for dead weight - _make_ him useful, or the Constructicons can have him for scrap."

"I understand." Skyfire laid a hand on Starscream's shoulder. "Once he's repaired, he'll be able to work with me in the lab. We can--"

"I want results, not promises. Get out of here."

Skyfire nodded, and gestured Starscream to precede him to the door. Just as they reached it, Megatron said, "Oh, and Skyfire?"

Skyfire turned. Megatron's cannon was suddenly pointed at his chest; before Starscream could even shout a warning, it flash-flared a searing ultraviolet. Skyfire was thrown back against the bulkhead, a smoking hole in his plating. He struggled to sit up, but desisted when Megatron shifted the cannon to aim directly at his spark chamber.

"You are useful, Skyfire, but you're not irreplaceable. Don't ever forget that."

Then he turned his back, dismissing them. Starscream would have given half his circuits for a weapon to take advantage of that arrogance, but all Skyfire did was get slowly, painfully to his feet and shove Starscream out into the corridor even as he was opening his mouth to launch a tirade of invective in place of laser fire. The door slid shut behind them and Skyfire sagged against the wall with a groan.

"You're not just going to take _getting shot_ without some sort of--"

"It isn't the first time and it won't be the last," Skyfire replied wearily. "It's better than deactivation. What in the Pit were you _thinking_\-- no, you weren't thinking, were you? Things are different now, Starscream. This isn't the Academy and it isn't one of your power games. You can't just talk back to Megatron and expect to get away with a mark on your _record_ or--"

"Didn't seem to be stopping _you_."

"There's a difference between holding your ground and actively challenging his authority! Primus." Skyfire sighed and pressed a hand tentatively to the gaping hole below his cockpit. A shudder went through his body from spark to wingtips. "You... may have to help me get back to my quarters."

"A fine scrapheap we make together," Starscream muttered, even as he got Skyfire's arm over his shoulders. "Come on. And I want to know _everything_, Skyfire. Starting with who the Pit this Megatron thinks he is."

* * *

  
_Everything_, as it turned out, would have to wait. Skyfire was hurt worse than he'd let on; by the time they reached his quarters, he could barely walk. The only way Starscream could keep him upright was by getting him to turn on his root-mode antigrav (that was something Skyfire had never bothered with before - he was content to fly in alt-mode - but apparently it was standard issue for Decepticon troops) so he weighed a tenth of his true mass.

The ship was a maze, but Starscream's earlier attention paid off; he managed to get them back with only minimal input from Skyfire. The hard part was navigating Skyfire's cluttered quarters (what had happened to the neat ordering of possessions that had so aggravated Starscream?) and persuading him to collapse onto his berth.

"No, I need to pick up some tools..."

"_You_ need to _stay put_ while _I_ pick them up," Starscream snapped, shoving Skyfire down without much gentleness, though he took care to avoid his injury, and went to do just that.

By the time he'd found a repair kit that looked like it had what he needed - and worked out what some of the tools were, since apparently those had changed too - the silly shuttle had levered himself upright again and was in the process of laboriously swinging his legs over the side of the berth.

"Do I have to force you into medical stasis? Lie _down_."

"You don't know my current specs--"

"I'll figure it out, you can't have changed _that _much without altering your root mode structure enough that I'd see it."

Starscream dropped the toolbox on the berth, put two hands on Skyfire's shoulders, and straddled his lap to more easily push him onto his back. Skyfire resisted for only a moment before giving way with a sigh of resignation.

"Just don't start pulling out any wiring--"

"Oh please, what do you take me for?" Starscream grabbed a small torch and directed its beam into the hole in Skyfire's chest. It was a pity he'd changed his alt-mode: his original form would've taken most of the damage to mostly redundant equipment. "Do you have any major fuel lines in here?"

"No, just a few auxiliaries. I think one of them was nicked in the blast, though, and at least one of my servo relays has fused..."

"_Something's_ leaking energon... ugh, this is a mess. Is there a suction pump in this tool box, or have they invented something better?"

"It's that one under the sonic resonator."

The pump made enough noise to prevent conversation for a few minutes. Starscream cleaned out as much of the leaked energon as he could; there were at least three torn lines, and auxiliary or not, the drain couldn't be good for Skyfire's systems. He laid the pump aside and turned back to the toolbox, but Skyfire passed him the sealant gun before he could ask for it.

"Be careful with that, I don't want it clogging up my circuits."

"I'll seal your mouth with it if you don't stop lecturing me like a newsparked apprentice."

"Sorry."

Skyfire's voice was unexpectedly soft. Starscream looked at him sharply, wondering if the energon drain was pushing him towards involuntary shutdown, but his optics were still bright and there was an expression on his face that Starscream couldn't interpret. Something between sadness and affection, perhaps.

"Why did you change your optics?" Starscream asked, angling the sealant gun in amongst the scorched wiring. He was going to need both hands; he wedged the torch between his teeth and reached in to temporarily pinch off the energon line he was working on.

"I didn't have much choice. Most of the first Decepticons - including Megatron - were Kaon-built. Before they started using the Decepticon brands, when they were just a gang of dissidents, the non-Kaon mechs would rewire to Kaon red as a sign of allegiance. By the time I joined, people thought of Kaon red as Decepticon red, and the Autobots had started doing the same thing - everyone on their side rewired to Iacon blue."

Skyfire had not been built in Iacon, but the production line that had produced his first body shell had used an optic blue that was some shades paler than the Iacon standard. Starscream supposed that it would have amounted to wearing the enemy's symbol - and probably would have meant a considerably shortened life expectancy under Megatron - but he still found it hard to adjust to. Somehow the red was _colder_ on Skyfire than the blue had been; more remote, less caring.

"Cn oo du--" Starscream stopped, spat out the torch, and started again. "Can you do mine?"

"Yours are close enough to pass." Starscream's optics were the orange-gold of Vos. "You'll need to scan an Earth alt-mode, though."

"Primus, there had better be something better looking available than what that Skywarp idiot was wearing..."

Starscream put the torch back in his mouth and began to work on the second of the damaged fuel lines. This one was almost severed, and it was some minutes before he could speak again. Skyfire said nothing in that time, watching him with that strange expression. When Starscream paused to check his work, Skyfire gently took the sealant gun from his hand.

"I'd forgotten you could be like this," he murmured.

"Like what?"

Instead of answering, Skyfire reached up to cradle Starscream's helm with one hand, studying his face as if seeing him for the first time. Then he drew Starscream down and kissed him.

It was almost the last thing Starscream had expected. For a long time now - and for Starscream it was still _now_ \- Skyfire had refused to initiate any sort of intimacy. It had been Starscream who would tempt and cajole and demand until Skyfire gave in, and half the pleasure of it had become the triumph of wearing Skyfire's resistance down. Particularly just after Starscream had done something that offended Skyfire's delicate morals, which seemed to grow more constrictive with every passing vorn. Starscream had intended to cure him of them come the Pit or Primus himself, had in fact meant to use their expedition to Sol-3 to force Skyfire to acknowledge the way the world was changing and that there was no longer room for his scruples - but then had come the ice. And Skyfire, it seemed, had learned the lesson his own way.

Which should have filled Starscream with triumph, but he found himself pulling back from the kiss, disquieted in a way he couldn't express.

"You're still leaking," he said brusquely, taking back the sealant. "And I still want answers, so you had better not pass out from energon loss before I'm done."

"I'm touched by your concern," Skyfire replied dryly, but his field had relaxed ever so slightly, and Starscream could feel little points of familiarity where it brushed his. "Where do you want me to start?"

"How about why we're sitting in a crashed ship on this Primus-forsaken planet with a gun-happy maniac at the helm? You said the Decepticons were winning."

"The Decepticons _were_ winning - for the first half of the war. That hasn't exactly been the case for some time now..."

* * *

  
The Decepticons had lost. Oh, the war was still ongoing, and Megatron's official stance was that they were in the midst of a tactical retreat, but in the end it was only semantics. Once the Autobots had gained control of Cybertron, Megatron had staked everything on the launch of the _Nemesis_. The ship would take them to a planet that had not been drained of energy, and with their stockpiles replenished, they would retake Cybertron within a handful of vorns...

The Autobots, naturally, had not allowed them to leave without a fight. And the _Nemesis_ had been damaged severely enough that on its arrival at Sol-3 - or "Earth" as Skyfire insisted on calling it - it had been unable to achieve a stable orbit and crashed into the planet's surface. They had been here some ten of this planet's years, and as yet the Autobots had not located them.

All of which meant, as far as Starscream could tell, that you couldn't even stretch your wings without someone claiming it was against regulations. There were rules about refueling, about the amount and quality of energon consumed by each Decepticon; there were rules about leaving the base and about where you went _within_ the base; there were rules about what information you had access to and how it was used. Within two days Starscream loathed them all.

He particularly hated the communal fuel dispensers, which spat out slag that could only barely be called energon. Skyfire claimed it was better quality than they'd been used to at the height of the war. Starscream wondered aloud if becoming a Decepticon short circuited one's taste subroutines.

The comment was met by a snigger from one of the rec room chairs. That was the other part Starscream hated - it was impossible to refuel privately, and there was always someone around in the rec room.

"Nah, it's Mixmaster's high grade that does it." It was Skywarp, lounging sideways in his chair and sunk so low that he was practically upside-down. "Drink enough of that and your _optics_ burn out."

"That explains so much," Starscream replied sweetly. "About you, anyway."

"Ah, frag off."

Skywarp didn't sound like his spark was in it. He took a long swig from his own half-full cube and kicked one leg back and forth moodily.

"Hey, Skyfire?"

Skyfire had just finished at the dispenser; he shot Skywarp a wary glance. As far as Starscream could tell there was no especial hostility between them most of the time - but Skyfire didn't seem to trust him any more than the rest of the Decepticons.

"Yes?"

"You hear we've got a new Air Commander showing up? Seeker called Twistwind. I knew him vorns ago, he's a glitch."

"Another Air Commander? How many does that make this year?"

"Dunno - three maybe? Or four, if you count that time Megatron thought it'd be a good idea to put Astrotrain in charge."

"Given that it lasted a grand total of six hours, I'm inclined not to."

"I'm sure this is all fascinating," Starscream interjected. "Can we go now?"

Skywarp shot him a sour look that suggested he would have thrown his cube at Starscream if it hadn't contained his day's ration of energon.

"You oughta quit acting like you're so high and mighty over the rest of us. You're not even _armed._ You're gonna get slagged - I might even do it myself."

"I'd advise against it," Skyfire said so calmly that it took Starscream a moment to recognise the threat. "When is our new Air Commander scheduled to arrive?"

"Sometime next shift--"

Skywarp was cut off by the sudden blaring of alarms. Starscream almost dropped his cube, and looked around quickly for signs of fire or evacuation - only to realise that the other two had barely reacted apart from a confused look on Skywarp's face and a frown on Skyfire's.

"Or, y'know, right now, apparently," Skywarp said when the alarms cut out. "That's weird, I swear orders were for 0600..."

_:All air troops are to report to the space bridge.:_ The voice that came over the base comms was an electronic monotone; Starscream immediately loathed it. _:Repeat, all air troops are to report to the space bridge. Immediately.:_

"This 'space bridge' is the teleportation device you mentioned?" Starscream eyed his energon disdainfully, but if it was all he was going to get, he'd have to swallow his pride - and the tasteless fuel. He threw back half the cube in one gulp, grimacing as he went on. "The one that links us to Cybertron?"

"Yes." Skyfire had either finished his own cube in record time, or subspaced it for later. "It's rarely activated – too risky. Usually new troops are brought in by Astrotrain or myself."

"Twistwind probably thought it was neat to show up in style," Skywarp muttered, jumping to his feet and tossing his empty cube in the vague direction of the trash. Starscream noted that it missed by some way and rebounded off the wall. This was the crack aim of the Decepticon elite, was it? "Stuck-up glitch. Always thought he was better than the rest of us." Skywarp gave a brief snort of laughter. "You two'll get on _fine_."

* * *

  
The space bridge was a wide circular enclosure built in a sheltering valley some way from the _Nemesis_. Starscream flew under his own power, somewhat shakily, but it was _wonderful_ to stretch his wings after so long earthbound. The white landscape below and the gale that buffeted his fuselage brought back more fleeting scraps of memory: coming down fast in the darkness of an unknown world, radio cutting out before he could call for Skyfire... He pushed them aside and concentrated on flying without a wobble.

"It took you ten years to find me when you crashed practically on top of me?"

"There is a whole continent below this ice, Starscream."

Skyfire was flying ahead and above him, and Starscream got his first good look at his partner's new alt-mode. He, too, had scanned the native technology, which was considerably cruder than the jet mode he had worn back on Cybertron. Still, the smooth lines of his new wings weren't unappealing.

"Those mountains below us are only the peaks of ranges buried beneath miles of ice," Skyfire went on, "and there is nothing for thousands of miles in any direction but snow and frozen sea. This close to the magnetic pole, instruments can become unreliable. In the end I found you more by luck than anything else - I was caught in a storm severe enough that I had to land and seek shelter, and it was while I was waiting it out that I picked up the traces of your emergency beacon."

"Pit of a place, isn't it?" said Skywarp, coming up on Starscream's wing. "Rest of the planet isn't so bad, but we're stuck down here at the aft-end of the rock where it's dark half the year and cold enough to freeze your manifolds right off."

"So the mighty Megatron can't even relocate his troops to a more suitable location?"

"Yeah well I'm sure he's got reasons," Skywarp said, without much conviction. "Soundwave wanted to move us into one of the cities, hide under all their signal noise and stuff, but Megatron wouldn't do it. Dunno why."

"Because this is the safest, most secret place on the planet," Skyfire replied sharply. "Our best hope of avoiding detection by the Autobots is avoiding notice from the natives here. There's enough geothermal energy beneath this continent to keep us going..."

"Just _barely_," Skywarp muttered. "You ask me, we should be doing the raids every week, not every couple of months."

"What raids?" Starscream put in, over the top of whatever Skyfire was about to reply. It was the first time Starscream had heard Skyfire in agreement with Megatron, which intrigued him. While he could tell at once why Skyfire would prefer to skulk about in hiding rather than make trouble for the native population, he would have thought Megatron would be in favour of a much more aggressive course of action. "I thought you didn't use the space bridge to return to Cybertron?"

"We don't." Skywarp tilted his wings back and forth moodily in the teeth of the storm. "We raid the humans' power stations sometimes. They've got enough wars going on, we can just slip in and make it look like it was one of their own."

"I'm in awe of the great Decepticon cause," Starscream replied sarcastically. "Here you are, the mighty warriors for Cybertron's freedom, hiding in a hole and stealing scraps from half-evolved organics. Why exactly am I supposed to want to join up, again?"

"Cos you get slagged if you don't." Skywarp edged in too close to Starscream; Starscream shied nervously away before he could stop himself. "Pit, lighten up, would you? I'm not gonna hit you, I can warp out of range. You need to come in tight here, or you'll clip the canyon walls on the way down."

"He's right." Skyfire drew ahead some way. "Follow in my slipstream, Starscream. And Skywarp, back off and give him some room. He's not used to formation flying."

"Call yourself a Seeker?" Skywarp muttered, but did as Skyfire told him.

"I don't see you with wingmates," Starscream shot back.

"Shut the frag up."

The other wing of Seekers - the Coneheads as Skywarp disparagingly called them - were already waiting by the space bridge, along with Soundwave and Megatron, who were inspecting the control panel, and the team of engineers that Starscream had gathered were known as the Constructicons. The space bridge was obviously active even if it wasn't open; the falling snow was hissing and sputtering several metres above the perimeter walls, as if hitting an invisible dome, and the ground within the circle itself was bare rock without the deep white shroud that Starscream landed in.

"This stuff is _disgusting_," he muttered to Skyfire, repressing another shiver of recognition. He'd come down so fast that he'd melted a hole in the snow and then the ice beneath, but he had been a single warm spot in an ocean of frozen silence, and even as his systems were going offline from the impact, he'd felt the heat leaching out of him... "I hate planets with high water content. It's not natural."

"Quiet," Skyfire murmured back, watching Megatron warily. "I'd rather not draw more attention than can be helped."

Behind them, three more flyers - all of them predominantly purple and obviously not Seeker models, though Starscream couldn't immediately identify what they _were_ \- came in for a messy landing in the soft snow. Starscream heard a similar string of complaints from their direction and made a mental note to get their designations. Others who were less than content with Megatron's leadership could be useful allies.

"Where has this Twistwind come from, anyway?" Starscream asked in an undertone. "I thought most of the Decepticon force was here."

"There are scattered pockets on other planets," Skyfire replied. "The trouble is finding them. And there are plenty still in stasis on Cybertron; sometimes Shockwave, Megatron's lieutenant in Kaon, manages to revive a few and send them through. I believe our new Air Commander is one of those."

"Heh, wanna bet on how long this one lasts?" put in one of the new arrivals. "I heard he's only been back online a half cycle. Maybe he'll beat Astrotrain's record."

"Shove it, Blitzwing," snarled his companion.

"You gonna make me?"

"Are you going to put your cubes where your vocaliser is, Blitzwing?" asked the third of their little gang. "I'll take your bet - two cubes says he lasts longer than Astrotrain."

"Nah," said Blitzwing after a few seconds of contemplation. "No bet."

"Frag you!" snarled the one Starscream could only presume was Astrotrain. He seemed to be a shuttle like Skyfire, though his root mode was oddly designed compared to his alt-mode. "And you, Octane. I was _set up_!"

"Yeah, yeah." Blitzwing dodged a sweeping blow and made for the space bridge, not bothering to hide his sniggering. "C'mon, let's get a look at this guy."

The conversation among the other Decepticons was in much the same vein, Starscream realised as he, Skyfire and Skywarp - who was unaccountably subdued now they were here - joined the crowd around the space bridge. Several bets were made and taken up on the length of time this new 'con would survive in his post, and whether he'd come to grief from a poorly designed strategy or at the end of Megatron's fusion cannon.

The speculation was cut off by the whine and crackle of a high energy build up. Starscream watched intently as the lights around the space bridge came on, halon-bright amid the blizzard. He'd have to get Skyfire to tell him how this worked, or hack into the blueprints if it was classified; warp technology had been limited to Skywarp's party trick when he'd last studied it. There must be limitations, or why didn't Megatron send a team into Autobot headquarters to take out their leader?

The lights intensified until they flared into nova brilliance. Then they cut out completely, leaving Starscream adjusting his optics to the sudden lower light levels, along with most of the rest of the Decepticons.

The first thing he registered was not one, but two mechs stepping out of the circle. One of them, dark green and deep red already spattered with white from the snow, strode forward to bow impressively before Megatron.

"Reporting for duty, sir."

"Twistwind." Megatron sounded about as pleased to see him as a bad rust infection. He stared over his new Air Commander's shoulder at the other Seeker, who had hung back a pace or two. "And this is your wingmate?"

"Yes." Twistwind straightened. "Thundercracker is particularly adept at--"

Starscream didn't hear the rest, because Skywarp, who had been staring at the new arrivals like a stunned petrorabbit, suddenly broke into a stream of vicious swearing. "Slagging Pit-spawned fragger onna _slagging_ hoversled I'm gonna slagging _kill him_..."

"Twistwind? Why?"

Skywarp turned intense optics on Starscream, who was taken aback by the sudden, violent loathing in his twisted expression.

"He told me TC was dead," Skywarp snarled, and the words were almost a howl beneath the scream of the wind. "He told me he was fragging _deactivated_!"

He spun away, running full-tilt into the whirling snow and transforming as he went. Starscream watched the black jet roar out of the canyon, and turned back just in time to see Megatron doing the same. For a split second their optics met, before Megatron turned his back, barking orders to shut down the space bridge and head back to base.

Starscream shot a glance at Skyfire. "Well, this should be interesting."

"Indeed. I wonder what Megatron is playing at?"

"Oh, no," Starscream said thoughtfully, "I think Megatron is in the middle of someone else's game here."

"What makes you say that?"

"Just a hunch." Starscream twitched as a small snow drift detached from his helmet and dumped itself into his wing joints. "Ugh. Hurry up and transform, would you? I want a ride back."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm afraid this story is now abandoned. I don't want to delete this teaser chapter since so many people have enjoyed it, but there won't be any more of it.


End file.
